Monday, September 30, 2013

Blomkamp's eagerly awaited directorial follow-up to 2009's District 9 comes in the shape of this well executed though perhaps not quite as politically motivated scifi action package. District 9 was a near perfect action film with a very strong and emotional political message at it's core. In Elysium Blomkamp criticizes the unfairness and brutality between social classes but tones it down a bit in favor of action sequences. Though it simplifies the film in comparison, the point still comes across very strong and Elysium is highly entertaining. I might even say that this is almost an equally balanced formula as D9 but simply put together in a different fashion. One of the best aspects in Elysium is Foster's cold baddie which she obviously has tons of fun playing.

The pedal is to the metal but somehow part 6 still seems to take a step backwards from the effortless fun of the previous installment. Fast Five was a flick in which it felt they had nothing to lose after the limp Fast & Furious so they made a fun heist movie. Maybe because that film made so much money, this time they felt they needed something more emotionally relevant. Fuck that. Nobody goes to see these films because of the drama. It's the fast cars and dangerous stunts we're here for. That being said, the action is nudged frustratingly back to the Over-The-Top-position which made number 4 a drag. Impossible scenarios and a mediocre villain (Evans) equals an entertaining but disappointing two hours with a very stoopidly dragged out climax.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Tons of respect to Hunt for taking on a daring role like this. I mean really. On paper, The Sessions may look to some a bit daunting with it's taboo subject matter of sexuality of the handicapped. Based on a true story, Hawkes plays a paralyzed man living in an iron lunge who decides to pursue losing his virginity with the help of a professional sex surrogate played by Hunt. The film ignores the taboos of it's theme by tackling them head-on and by being genuinly inventive, funny and touching to the point you can't believe the film was nominated for only one Oscar (Hunt) and snubbed for that too.Usually you see genuine emotions of this level only in Richard Curtis films. See this film!

During filming, it was reported that the crew were executing as much of the effects practically as possible. That turned out to be true for which I give lots of respect to the filmmakers but sadly that's the extent of true quality of the movie. Sure, there's lots of gore but it's all just dull slaughtering without an ounce of originality. In the original film the evil force tormented the living psychologically in their face in addition to killing which is largely absent from the remake. And could we please already start making movies where there are no dogs just for the simple reason of them being there for the slaughter? It's a cheap and transparent way to try and raise our sympathies. Nice poster though.

Pacific Rim is again one of those summer popcorn fares where nominal character building has been added just to give at least some justification to over two hours of giant robots fighting giant monsters. Pacific Rim is fun and extremely well executed. Then again it's Del Toro so what else could it be? Director regular Ron Perlman gives his usual hilarious supporting role.

The plot synopsis of a dog kidnapping of a mob boss sounds like a delicious starter for a crime comedy from the director of the brilliant In Bruges, but the film is anything but. Seven Psychopaths is just pointless and not least because the cleverness of playing with film clichés becomes dull very fucking soon. Why does every "clever" film nowadays wanna be Scream?

I am not my job or how much money I have in the bank.

Just felt like sharing my views and opinions about these films and related topics with you, but feel free to let me know if there's a particular film of which you'd like me to write about. If I haven't seen it, I'll try to make an effort to find it and review it for you.
Bare in mind that I'm only just getting started. There's not much material yet, but Rome wasn't built in a day either. Right?? :) and also, I'm a Finnish guy so give me a break if my english isn't 100%.